A Proper Knowledge
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
“Every passionate reader lives for that first page of a book that alerts her, straightaway, she’ll be sorry when the book ends. So it is with Michelle Latiolais’ astonishing, sparklingly intelligent new novel...The work strives, with bold zest, to arrive at the marrow of things...Latiolais triumphs, folding the work’s clinical ruminations into the story’s delicious batter. Powerfully recommended.”—Antioch Review
“The novel counts—in elegant and sometimes elegiac prose—the shadowy and elusive opportunities for redemption.”—Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies
“A ravishing intelligence is at work in these pages.”—Elizabeth Tallent, author of Honey, on Even Now
A gifted psychiatrist, haunted by the death of his young sister, seeks to penetrate the mysteries of childhood autism in this beautifully written, insightful investigation into the misunderstood pathways of the brain—and the heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The troubled inner life of an autism doctor centers this slow-moving recovery novel from Latiolais (Even Now). A progressive psychiatrist, Luke is simultaneously driven and haunted by the death of his younger sister Sadie: her possible autism was misdiagnosed as schizophrenia and medicated accordingly, with tragic results. Told in retrospect, the subsequent disappearance of Luke's father results in Luke's too close relationship with his mother, Louise, and with Janey, the punk de facto runaway adopted to replace Sadie. When Luke attends a christening and is attracted to the odd floral arrangements of Janey's employer, Alice Samara, he decides to break his familiar stasis and pursue Alice. Their budding relationship forces Luke to face Sadie's death. Apart from Alice's two-dimensionality and some awkward religious symbolism, Latiolais offers an insightful look at recovery from loss and abandonment.
